Poets are not supposed to be jaded. Poets are supposed to feel everything, at once, all the time, and like it. By this measure, before I called myself a poet, I was one; my threshold as an emotional sponge is the stuff of legend.
But since I became a poet, something has changed. Since I became a poet, I am warier of life off the page. This memory bank of distress and disappointment and reverie is enough. Do not give me any more ammunition, do not force…
